Is there a way to do grey scale images on a stock k40?

Lasers
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1

Is there a way to do grey scale images on a stock k40? I’ve been reading for days and have yet to get a clear answer, using the provided laserdrw software

2

The closest you can come is to dither an image but as far as doing a pure grayscale engrave you will need to upgrade your controller

3

@Cody_McNary ​ an example of dithered image you can do with stock controller

16288faece0263fa81ad3b5a3364c08a.jpeg

4

That took alot of practice tho so don’t get frustrated if you don’t get the results you want

5

Thank you, will you please explain the process of dithering? And do I need to set the laser to low power or higher

6

Dither is done in a photo shop program by processing an image to one bit dots… this is the way old magazines and news paper processed images more dots per inch = darker, less dots per inch = lighter… I do all my image rasters between 4-7ma depending on image

7

If you use Photoshop, I recently came across an awesome feature that makes turning a full colour image into B&W very easy (retaining the level of detail you wish to keep). That is done using a method called Threshold. I’ll drop a before & after pic here to show the results (also with Diffusion Dither for comparison). Note: no pre-processing of the image was done before doing Threshold or Diffusion Dither).

b02747c120276fc0ef6e7188fe79e9e9.jpeg
b02747c120276fc0ef6e7188fe79e9e9.jpeg1758×985 1.34 MB

8

You can also use Corel to prepare the image. You don’t need Photoshop in case you don’t have that. Search on YouTube for laser engraving photographs. A few decent videos out there showing the process.

9

I personally use GimpShop for almost all my photo shop needs

10

Thank you all very much, I managed to work GIMP2 into dithering an image for me, and have come to the conclusion I need higher resolution photos. The first attempt came out well on an anodized sheet of aluminum at 5ma, just a little grainy.